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Animate a Toy or Knitting Project With a Toy Skeleton

You have a favorite stuffed toy, or maybe you knit or crochet, and can create a stuffed toy from scratch. How much more fun would that stuffed toy be if you could add some animation to it? What if you could pose it and give it some life? It doesn't have to be the staid, flopping stuffed toy or crochet project that every other one has been.

In a feweasy steps, we are going to show you how to bring some personality to that stuffed toy or crochet project. The trick to bringing some life to that floppy stuffed toy is to create an inner moveable structure that will be placed inside – the toy skeleton.

Step 1:

For our demonstration, we are using a kangaroo knitting pattern developed by Tracy Chapman in her book Toys to Knit. (Randomhouse) Follow along with these easy steps to create your animated stuffed toy or knit figure.

We start by knitting the individual parts. We have laid the individual parts out flat in the photo to show you what they look like. Lay out the two halves of the body. These will be joined first, starting at the head. Starting at the head, knit the two halves of the head together, then attach the eyes, ears and nose.

Step 2:

At this point, assemble the toy skeleton structure to fit the shape of your developing kangaroo. We bought ours through the Parabox website (search Parabox plus Toy Skeleton). Refer to the photos for guidance. You will need to use the separator/joiner tool (pliers) to get each limb of your toy skeleton sized to the right length.

Once your skeleton structure has been assembled to the right size, insert it into your knit figure or stuffed toy. Use the accompanying photos as a guide.

Once the toy skeleton structure has been inserted into the knit figure, attach the front panel and the remainder of the panels and parts and add enough stuffing to make firm. Attach the pouch at this point.

Although we wrapped the head and legs in our example, this step is not necessary.

Step 3:

Once your skeleton structure has been assembled to the right size, insert it into your knit figure or stuffed toy. Use the accompanying photos as a guide.

Step 4:

You may want to temporarily remove part of the arm appendages in order to fit that portion of the toy skeleton frame into your knitting project.

Step 5:

Attaching the tail is the final step and you now have a knit figure that you can pose.